


Luminary

by SingManyFaces



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blindness, Gen, Inspired By Tumblr, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27938377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingManyFaces/pseuds/SingManyFaces
Summary: In this world, Anakin Skywalker suffers a great trauma and it prevents a worse one.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Sheev Palpatine & Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 32
Kudos: 187





	Luminary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilyconrad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyconrad/gifts).



> Written for a prompt given by @writegowrite on tumblr.

‘Luminous beings,’ Master Yoda always said of people, and it was an idea Anakin had always thought he’d understood. Everyone looked different in the Force, after all, shone with their own light that made even the clones easy to tell apart if you could see it. He had always thought he could see it well. 

He didn’t realize how wrong he’d been until he lost his sight.

The last thing that Anakin had seen with his eyes was the searing red of a lightsaber, just one more thing that the war—that Dooku—had taken from him. The recovery process hadn’t been easy at first; he’d hated being away from his men and the knowledge that he likely wouldn’t be returning to them, hated the darkness he’d had to live in beneath his bandages as the healers had worked on him. He was not prepared for what was waiting for him when they finally came off.

Without his eyes the people around him lit up in the Force like the star maps in the Library and it was as if he was seeing them, the truest essence of them, for the first time. Anakin had never particularly enjoyed the time he spent with Master Che before, the healer always appearing to him to be one of the more unyielding masters in the Order. But, stripped of all but what the Force would show him, he could see so much more easily the persistent worry for her patients that she struggled to let go of, the _care_ at the heart of her every word and action. That same care threaded through the Presence of every healer that stepped into his room, made their attempts to soothe and console so much more effective—after all, there was no longer any doubt that they were sincere. 

He couldn’t wait to be allowed visitors. 

Unsurprisingly, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka came first. His padawan had such a warm glow, pulsing in gentle blues at the core in a way that made him wonder more and more how she’d ended up with green sabers. And his master—he was bright as a sun, but Anakin had never known a sun could feel so gentle. The day that they’d brought Rex along with them, they hadn’t needed to tell him; Anakin had called to him immediately as tears began to stream down his cheeks, to the Captain’s immediate confusion and worry. But they were happy tears, he’d assured, as he’d extricated one of his hands from Rex’s. “It’s your eyes,” Anakin had explained with a soggy laugh, his touch light against the center of Rex’s chest as he’d drawn the familiar arches of the jaig eyes with his fingertips, “I can still see them.”

Despite the outwardly bleak situation, Anakin’s spirits began to rise. Every new visitor brought new insight with them, helped him to see the Light radiating warmth at the core of every life form in the Temple. 

Until the Dark came.

Anakin felt the cold first, a chill that crept down into his bones; then there was a void standing in his doorway. Years before, in one of his charting classes, he had seen a simulation of a star collapsing, and the black hole it left behind—he felt like he was looking at it again now. There was an apprentice healer at its side, the Dark spilling over their Light like ink until he could scarcely see it at all; he couldn’t even tell which healer it was.

The Dark came closer and it was all he could do not to reel back from it. Couldn’t the healer feel it? Why was it here, allowed to get so close?

“Anakin, my boy,” came an all too familiar voice, “they’ve finally let me come see you.”

He felt as though he’d been struck, head turning toward the voice...toward the void. “Ch-Chancellor?”

“Oh, dear boy,” the voice sounded sympathetic, or like it was trying to be, “Are you alright? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so frightened.” Then that coldness actually touched him, wrapped around his hand and held, so frigid it nearly burned. “Of course, keeping you isolated like this, still so far from restoring you—I dare say I’d feel frightened, too.”

The words, he knew, might normally have brought him comfort; he could remember waking up in the Halls of Healing not that long ago feeling anger for just those reasons. Now, though, they felt like viscous oil dripping into his ears. He was familiar with feeling fear, had been cautioned against it for as long as he’d been at the Temple. But feeling such a _deep,_ skin-crawling fear as he felt now... “I—” he swallowed thickly around the bile burning his throat, “I’m sorry, Chancellor, I’m not feeling well.” His head dipped toward his sheets and, with an effort, he kept from curling in on himself. “I think I might need some sleep.”

The Dark _pulsed_ , and for just a moment the cold evaporated with a hot burst of anger before it stole back in again. “Of course,” the Chancellor replied, unflappable as always, in the tone that usually sounded so kind, “I wouldn’t dream of keeping you from your rest, my friend.”

The endearment made his head suddenly feel like it was spinning—Anakin remembered the last time he had felt this kind of fear.

He lost consciousness before the Dark left the room.

When awareness returned to him Anakin felt blanketed in warmth, and a hand folded over his. Forming a weak smile, “Master?”

He could sense a slight startle in the Presence next to him, then, “Yes, Anakin, I’m here.” Obi-Wan’s voice was soft, slightly rough with sleep, as he squeezed his hand before letting go. Anakin could hear a glass being filled from the pitcher kept near his bed. “Why don’t you sit up and drink something?”

Once he was sitting, Obi-Wan pressed the glass into his hands; Anakin could feel the other man’s attention as he drank. “Are you feeling any better?” Obi-Wan asked, “Apprentice Clay was worried for you.”

“Yes,” he said, voice strained. _‘Now that you’re here,’_ he Did Not say. “I think there’s something I need to tell you, Master.” He swallowed, throat working awkwardly as he willed himself to speak. “Something you need to know.”

“Of course, Anakin, anyth—”

“There’s something wrong with the Chancellor.” Anakin’s mouth had gone dry again so he took another drink, draining his glass. “ _Very_ wrong.”

In the Force he could see Obi-Wan’s curiosity jump, and for just a moment Anakin could feel the dislike for the Chancellor that Obi-Wan usually kept so well-hidden. “That...” he hesitated, “is quite a ‘something,’ Anakin. What makes you say that?”

Obi-Wan’s hand touched the back of his around the glass, and he held a little tighter as more water was poured into it. He took a smaller sip this time as he spoke the last thought he’d had before he passed out, “He feels like the Son.”

Even without his eyes he knew the expression on his master’s face then: the gentle, if somewhat confused, smile. “Anakin, you’ve said recently _I_ feel like the sun.”

Anakin shook his head, the heel of his hand pressing briefly to his forehead before searching out Obi-Wan’s own again. “Master,” he asked softly, breaking their passive agreement of silence on the subject, “How much do you remember from Mortis?”

Obi-Wan’s glow dimmed for just a moment as his confusion deepened, then flared fiercely as realization struck. He tightened his grip on Anakin’s hand. “He feels like _the Son_.”

Already he could breathe a little easier, now that his master understood. “Yes.”

Another squeeze to his hand, “We’ll find the meaning to this, Anakin.” Obi-Wan’s touch was warm on the nape of his neck, then his shoulder, where he clasped him firmly. “I swear it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! You can find me on tumblr @singmanyfaces if you want to drop by. :D


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